7,659 Churches Left, Buildings and All: How the United Methodist Split Became a Property Question

• A 2019 rule let United Methodist congregations leave with their property until the end of 2023
• Churches had to vote, work with regional conferences and pay apportionments and pension liabilities
• By the deadline, 7,659 congregations had left, nearly one in four
• Some had to fight their conferences in court or were asked to pay more than they could afford

By the end of 2023, 7,659 congregations had left the United Methodist Church over four years, 5,642 of them in 2023 alone, Christianity Today reported on December 18, 2023. That is nearly one in four of the denomination’s roughly 30,000 congregations.

The exits were made possible by a provision adopted at a 2019 special General Conference, Paragraph 2553, which let churches depart while keeping their property until December 31, 2023. It set out a process for voting, coordinating with regional conferences and paying apportionments and pension liabilities.

Not every exit was smooth. Some congregations had to fight their conferences in court to complete the process or were asked to pay more than they could afford to leave, the magazine reported. The heaviest losses were in the South and Midwest, including about 500 churches in Tennessee, 750 in Texas, 672 in North Carolina and 623 in Georgia.

Many departing churches joined the Global Methodist Church, launched in May 2022, which counted more than 4,000 congregations in all 50 states.

Jamaica has its own Methodist churches and many other denominations with property held in trust for the wider body. The American split shows that when a congregation wants to leave, the building is often the biggest issue, and the price of keeping it can include pension obligations and back payments as well as legal costs. Congregations thinking about a change of affiliation should find out what their trust deeds require, and denominations may find that a clear, agreed exit process is less costly than years of litigation.

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